


Stärke

by Ara (WalkUnseen)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Accidental Pet Death, Angst, He is ambiguously young in this, I am a sad boi for Caleb, I know Caleb said his parents were great and sunshine but sometimes I have thoughts about that, The Original Frumpkin, This is what they created, This isn't really canon, implied domestic abuse, nothing too extreme though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 15:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17205968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WalkUnseen/pseuds/Ara
Summary: The name is on the tip of his tongue, a name he hasn't said in years, a decade, longer-- in so long he nearly forgot it in the washed out walls of that place.“Frumpkin?”





	Stärke

**Author's Note:**

> The Widomauk Discord inspired me to do this. You're welcome. 
> 
> The pet death and the abuse is heavily implied but not explicit or drawn out. This is the aftermath.
> 
> Also I think Liam confirmed original Frumpkin was female so. I rolled with that.

 

_“Stop crying.”_

He swipes at the tracks of heated water on his cheeks, smothers out the evidence alongside the echoed reprimand. 

_“Soldiers don't cry.”_

He paws at his face with the edge of his shirt, ribs fluttering in a jerky inhale, fingers twisting in the fabric at the pull of another shaky sob from the pit of him. 

_”Chin up, Caleb."_

He sets his jaw, grits his teeth, gnashes down on that next gasping little whine and screws his eyes shut against the burn. He doesn't want to open them back up. He doesn't want to see her like that. Fingers tangled in her pelt, holding her to his chest, curled over her and whispering a prayer, an apology, a litany of lost syllables into the air where they lose themselves to the continued shudder and hitch of his breathing. 

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm--” 

He didn't mean to do it. He never wanted to do that. But he did. And she's turning chilled in his arms, limbs a relaxed spill of muscles and head lolling, paws lifeless where she would usually knead at him, purr, meow in that small little melodic pitch she always has. The one that echoed from an alley, tucked against the cobblestones, cold, shivering and left for damned to the mercilessness of the elements. She had looked up at him with eyes of liquid fear and a raising of hackles over a battered frame. Scared, helpless, abandoned, _pitiful_ and everything he had wanted to protect.

He was supposed to keep her safe. 

He stumbles to one foot, kneeling, bundling her closer to his chest, near the warmth of his still trodding heart, and there's no answering flutter, no quicker beat, a staccato he has grown to know as intimately as the lines of his hand. 

_“What did you do?”_

His cheek is still red, the ring of bruises around his wrist prominent but negligible compared to the vestige he clutches to himself, cradles, and folds safely within his arms. She's too cold, she's far too cold and he's not sure how to warm her back up. 

_”You look me in the eyes when I'm speaking to you.”_

He needs a blanket. 

_”Do you understand?”_

He stumbles for his bed, laying her out on the sheets and she doesn't move, she doesn't shift and blink up at him with amber eyes like she usually would and he whimpers, teeth digging and gnawing at the inside of his cheek. The sheet is scratchy and too big to bundle her in but he needs to keep her warm. He rips it, the tearing of fabric a tremulous wail in his ears and the sensation rattling up through his palms. She doesn't shift, she doesn't turn or flick her tail or curiously trill at him when he lays her down on the torn square. 

_“Now, what did you do, Caleb?”_

He doesn't even realise he has the heel of his palm wedged in between his teeth until there's the smallest tang of iron blooming on his tongue. She's just staring, endlessly, blankly, dully at the far wall and all he can taste is blood in his mouth and the bunching regret at the back of his throat. 

_”I asked you a question.”_

He shakes his head, pulls a corner of the square over her, the back of his fingers brushing her pelt and he recoils. 

_”Answer me.”_

He stares at his palm, the new set of teeth marks dug into it, wonders how it isn't stained and dripping with venom.

_”Answer me.”_

His fingers half curled, the sensation of them tangled in her scruff, firm, searching, twisting and squeezing and squeezing and _squeezing_ \--

**_”Answer me!”_ **

He slams the butt of his hand against his temple, a frustrated snarl tearing from beneath his ribs. Hunching over and pulling at his hair until it _hurts_ and the burn of it skitters down his spine but it's still not enough. It's not enough and she's just laying there, half covered in tan fabric and not moving-- she hasn't moved for some time now and he doesn't know how to fix this. He doesn't know how to _fix this_ \-- he rocks on his heels, fists his hands into the sheets and resists the urge to tear the things from their home on the frame. He wants to pull apart this room, bloody his knuckles, fracture them against the wall, turn this place inside out until it looks as caved in and torn up as his chest feels. He just wants her to come back. He just wants her back. He just-- Gods he just--

_“If you would just answer me the first time this wouldn't happen, Caleb.”_

Empty amber eyes bore into him, vacant, blank, _accusatory_ and he chokes on the crawl of a sob inching its spidery, acidic way up his throat. It's his fault-- It's his fault--It's _always_ his fault. 

_“I'm sorry-- Es tut mir Leid-- Sohn-- Caleb...I never want to hurt you...you know that right?”_

He didn't want to hurt her. He didn't _mean_ to hurt her. He can't remember why he did-- It's all a patch of bleeding red that ended with her limp in his grasp and crumpled at his feet. 

_”You know I'd never deliberately hurt you…”_

He would never do that intentionally, he would never-- he's not--- He's nothing like--

_“Do you forgive me?”_

She would never suspect him, she would have never guessed fingers that caressed and carded and sifted, gently, reverently, through her fur could turn to claws and talons and scaled broken things blossomed with bruises and the purpling evidence of everything he can't control. 

**_”Do you forgive me?”_ **

She didn't see the monster under his skin. 

He numbly wraps her, folding the sheets in a quiet procession around her, breath even, face blank and where his fingers quaked and skittered before they are calculated now, collected, and steady. When he finally hides the last inch of her bengaled pelt beneath a swathe of beige he crumples, face scrunching, brows dropping and eyes burning with the heated fever of a regret that's more than bone deep. It's so much deeper than that. And when he collects her back into his arms there's not even an inch of warmth left to find. 

“Frumpkin?” He whispers, quiet and hopeful, as if she'll impossibly protest the fabric prison but there's nothing. 

He carries her from the room, warily eyes the hall, listens for the heavy trod, for booted feet, for a military gait that only occasionally haunts these halls. He hears nothing, that wraith vanished to smoke and a tension bleeds from him at the absence of that never slumbering drake clad in reds and gold. 

He doesn't anticipate his _Mutter_ , working feverishly, bent over an opened book, a quill scrawling across the parchment in a dance he doesn't know the steps to. She pauses, fly away auburn trailing across her face as she glances up. 

“Caleb?” She starts, unsure and in the beginnings of worry that he knows could be dangerous, “What do you have there?” 

He doesn't turn to face her fully in the dim candlelight, the continued sting of his cheek all too telling of the mark imprinted into it, a silver band birthing an ugly welt amongst the raised reminder. He makes it to the back of the house before he can even hear the scrape of a chair. The back door swings open with the creak of aged wood and cold-touched hinges under his shoulder, bare feet splintering chilled grass beneath them. Every step an agony he deserves to endure for the crime concealed in his arms and he bares it with grit teeth and the wild skitter of his eyes across the dulled landscape and the sprawling treeline. 

He needs to find somewhere to put her. 

“Caleb?” His _Mutter's_ voice carries through the icy stillness, the beginning of winter settled over the land but not yet smothering it in death. 

Frantic pants of air leave him in condensed puffs, curling and vanishing in front of his nose and he holds her tighter, breaks off into a run, into the woods where his mother won't find him. The cold chills the soles of his feet, the numbness setting in with a stabbing at the edges of its reach and he's grateful when he can no longer feel every minute shift of earth and leaf beneath him. He stumbles, Frumpkin nearly slipping from his arms and he whimpers when the covering shifts and he can see her eyes-- dead, empty, pools of reflective glass and him reflected in them-- _murderer_

“Caleb!?” Her voice is raised now, panicked, but muffled by distance and he tears off further into the depths of the forest. 

The shadows enfold him in dripping ink, the moon concealed by heavy clouds overhead, ominous and rumbling with the beginnings of a threat. The first drop of rain startles him, sliding down his cheek in an icy mingle with his own heated trails of rain from eyes that burn and burn and _burn_. The earth beneath him quickly turns into sliding muck, frigid, worse than just the dried patches of stabbing rocks and silt. It clings to him and the near sleet cascades from the heavens in a tilted weep through the barren trees that cut into the sky in searching fingers above. The rumble of distant thunder sends his heart skittering and he clings to Frumpkin but there's no comfort there, just a rigid collection of lifeless muscles and damp fur. 

He can no longer hear his _Mutter_ calling for him, her pursuit muffled by the raucous chorus of a storm swallowing him, the limbs and boughs of the trees hissing and rattling above, threats that slide against his ears and bleed into accusations. 

_Murderer._

_Killer._

_Your fault._

_“Why do you always have to test my patience, Caleb?”_

The cracking flash of lightning and the clap of thunder sends him crashing to his knees, shoulder colliding with rough bark and Frumpkin falling from his arms in a spill of water-logged sheets. He stays kneeled, eyes screwed shut and hands clasped over his ears, shaking and shivering underneath the brunt of the onslaught. Light dancing behind his eyelids in a terrifying display and another chest deep boom sends him pressing into the trunk and whimpering. 

He wants her back. 

He just wants her back. 

Another bone rattling brontide has him scrambling for her, the sheet forgotten and he cradles her to his chest, curls around her and wonders why-- 

_“Why can't you just listen?”_

Why can't he just do what he's told? Why can't he just sit still? Why can't he just-- Why-- 

**_“It's just a cat, Caleb.”_ **

He straightens up, spine turned rigid and face blank. The continuing swell of the storm, the tugging gale of wind, the sting of icy water against his cheeks, all of it forgotten in the echo of the phantom voice trapped in his ears amongst the warfare of the gods overhead. 

“It's just a cat,” he mutters, pressing his face into the bundle of chilled, wet fur in his arms. 

But she's so much more than just a cat. She's a friend. She's always there; in the dark when he thinks he's alone and abandoned, curled up at his side, on his chest, a soft constant purring rumble, a warmth, a little light he could cling onto when shadows crawl for him from the nightmares. 

“I'm sorry,” he whispers, the words swallowed by the clatter of rain. 

He settles her down on the ripped sheet that's half submerged in mud and freezing water. If he buries her now she would just come back up from the earth to be eaten by any number of scavengers-- and she doesn't deserve that. She never deserved this but he did it and his hands are dripping with an unseen ledger that bleeds with her name. 

He presses his back against the harsh grind of the trunk, spine tingling with the bite of the bark, burying his face in his crossed arms. His hands and feet sting and throb and he's sure if he looked at them they'd be an angry red, tinted a matching purple that mirrors the growing ones on his cheek and circled around his wrist because he didn't answer Vater the first time he asked. Teeth chattering and shivers wracking him, mud caking his legs and arms, from when he stumbled and slid into the muck. The rain mercifully washes away at least that evidence and he wishes it would sweep him away too-- carry him far into the valley and away from this place so he doesn't have to face that empty-eyed corpse he created. 

He's not sure how long he's there. 

Hours maybe; an endless swell of time that drips by him and sifts through numb fingers like the endless buzzing in his skull. The rain stops, the noise stops, everything stops and he's left; numb and hollow. Limbs deadened and chilled, fingers fumbling uselessly when he tries to pull himself up and falls back on shaking legs. 

Dawn is encroaching, his _Mutter_ has not found him, his _Vater_ will be home soon and he should get back before he does-- clean the mud from his clothes and his skin. Hide the evidence. 

Frumpkin is where he left her, limply curled on her side, _empty--empty-- empty_ and he presses his fingers into the earth beneath the sentinel oak that shielded him from the squall.  He hollows a space amongst the roots, digs and digs, each vacated patch another gaping hole in his chest-- _empty--empty--empty--_ the numbness snapping into a bone deep ache where renewed blood meets his fingers and he ignores it.He claws and shovels and picks through stone and mud and rot and he tries not to think about her eyes-- _empty--empty--empty--_ splits a cavern into the earth until he's down to his elbows in it and then further and further until he thinks maybe he's making his own grave. Preparing his own tomb alongside hers because he's not sure how he's supposed to exist without her, it doesn't feel right and he pauses, grit between his teeth and the taste of silt lining his mouth. 

_”A soldier does not falter in the face of death, Caleb.”_

The first of dawn plays over the forest in a wash of flames; red and oranges that dance over hands he pulls free from the earth. He settles back on his heels, knees dug into the softened muck and nails caked; ruined with blackened terra that dries like soot on his skin. He watches those flickering, artificial embers play across them and it makes them _dangerous_. 

The potential for harm hidden beneath soft, pale, unassuming skin. But he knows the power of hands--- he knows what people can do with them. They can create, they can till a field, they can cultivate life, they can bring stories to being, they can weave magic-- be harsh and loving in one-- and they can _ruin._

And he's always been very good at one of those things. 

_”A soldier is strong, even when faced with the inevitable.”_

He picks her up one last time, one final time, with hands stained by death and the glitter of sunrise settling as cinders amongst the droplets captured in her fur. He lowers her into the shoddily dug grave, the desperately clawed one, the one that looks more like an animal vacated the earth than a man and he thinks maybe that's fitting of him because he's never been the same as the others. Maybe he's always been a monster…

He pushes the first shift of dirt over her and he falters. Fingers sinking into the edges of that hole, hunched over it and he can still see her eyes; open-- ever open-- he should shut them-- he should-- He brushes his fingers over them but they're stiff with cold and she's frigid. He recoils, stares at those glassy mirrors and he doesn't know what to do. He needs to get back. The sun is trekking its way in a trail of fire into the sky to his east and his _Vater_ will be home soon and he needs to be there because he can't get in trouble again. He pushes another portion over her and chokes on a sob crawling its way back up from the blackened pit beneath his ribs because he can't see that pattern tangled along her fur anymore and he's impossibly afraid he might forget it. He doesn't want to forget her...

Another-- and then another-- and more-- the sift and fall of dirt a metronomic tidal wave in his skull and there's no funeral bells, there's no prayers, there's no ceremony but there's the sound of a plea in his head that he's too afraid to utter because he doesn't deserve her forgiveness. 

When it's just a patch of disturbed earth and the wash of orange has engulfed the forest and turned the tree’s shadows into sprawling beasts along the forest floor he finally stands. He stares at it a moment, there's no marker and he has nothing to make one with--but he'll know she's here. He'll never forget where he put her at least. 

He knows _Mutter_ has asked the Dawnfather, sought him for guidance, prayed for a plentiful harvest and he's never been one to ask the gods for anything. He looks towards that rising sun, closes his eyes against the light and he asks for one thing. 

“Caleb!” 

She's calling for him again and he wishes he had flowers to give to that little patch of hallowed earth. All he has is hands stained with mud, hands tainted with rot, hands that don't deserve the simple comforts of fur and warmth. 

He picks his way through the forest, heads North, to home, to the lazy curl of smoke above the empty tree tops from the tamed hearth. The brick and wood are bathed in liquid fire from the throes of dawn and he can see his _Mutter_ peering into the woods, searching for him with a worried tilt to her posture and frantic hands. 

“Caleb!” She crows when she spots him, lingering along the tree line, afraid to step past that line that defines him from them. 

She disregards that disconnect, enters the thrall of the woods that call him theirs and she wraps arms around him that he clings onto, knees turning weak in her grasp, fingers clutching at her dress and hiding his face-- hiding away from the continued hiss of the trees and the woods. 

“I was worried sick about you, the storm got so bad and I couldn't find you, I've been up all night and--” She pauses when she draws back, peering down at him, a thumb brushing over his cheek, her eyes pinching and where relief sat there's a worried frown. 

“What happened to your face, Caleb?” 

“Fell,” he mutters, brushing her hand away from it, palming at it and wishing he could make it go away so she doesn't have to worry for something that's his fault. 

She frowns, brushing a strand of hair behind his ear and cupping his cheek again despite his silent protests at being coddled, “Be careful next time…don't go running off like that again-” 

She glances him over, stutters over the absence of a particular cat purring and draped along his shoulders. 

“Where is Frumpkin, dear?” She glances around his feet and back into the forest as if the bengal will appear from behind one of the lifeless boughs.

“She ran off,” he avoids her eyes, the lie slipping easily from him but stinging like acid all the way from under his ribs to the tip of his tongue. 

“Is that why you went off into the woods last night?” She tilts his face back up to meet hers, a solemnity in them, a sadness that should be anger and accusation if he told her the truth---if she knew what he had really done, “You could have told me, I would have helped you look for her.” 

“It's fine… she'll come back if she wants to,” he glances back to the forest, to that grave hidden in its depths. 

He asked the Dawnfather to watch her grave, to make sure nothing touches it, that nothing would ever hurt her ever again. 

There's footsteps, the crunch of dead leaves underfoot, a familiar gait and he meets his father's eyes from around his _Mutter_ and they're as hard as he remembers them being. Flints of steel that when turned soft are everything he could ask for. That are sharp, deadly, quick, calculating in their coldness and assessment. Strong...

“Oh, but I know you loved her, Schatzi,” _Mutter_ continues, holding him close.  

“She's just a cat,” he echoes, and his _Vater_ watches him, eyes flicking to the absence of the cat on his shoulders and to the woods and back to him-- all too knowing.

He doesn't cry. He can feel it bunched under his sternum again, but his _Vater_ is watching and soldiers don't cry. 

_”You'll have to be strong one day, Caleb.”_

He'll do a better job at protecting the next one.  

\--------

The next time he sees amber eyes reflected back at him he's in the depths of a forest, spell components sprawled across the ground and a book, tattered and beat up on the outside-- perfectly preserved within and opened to a page of scrawled notes; desperation and desire bled into the ink.

_”Do you forgive me?”_

The cat blinks up at him and he stares at it, unsure, fingers itching to card through its fur, knead at that spot behind its ears, to hear the chest deep rumble from it that means it's content. It's ear flicks, head cocking and haunches folding into a delicate sit and it looks just like her. From the color of its eyes to the patterns of its fur and he knows he'll protect this one, he'll do _everything_ for this creature that looks everything like her but he knows it isn't. He knows it isn't her because he _buried_ her in a forest behind a house he turned to ashes-- and he's glad she never saw him become truly horrifying. She-- _He’s_ just sitting there staring at him, with eyes so perfectly rendered to be hers they could be a _mirror_.

_”Do you forgive me?”_

The name is on the tip of his tongue, a name he hasn't said in years, a decade, longer-- in so long he nearly forgot it in the washed out walls of that place. 

“Frumpkin?”

**Author's Note:**

> One thing I noticed is Caleb saying his Father 'expected a lot of him' and that had me thinking some shizz. And like just saying you can still love your parents, look back and think 'hey they were great', but they can still have hurt you. Maybe because they were angry or stressed in that moment, etc. It doesn't excuse their actions and it can have consequences. Even if it's only a couple instances and not frequent or recurring... still has repercussions.


End file.
